Thai court rules on Kingsgate Consolidated

Australian miner Kingsgate Consolidated has been ordered by a Thai Court to carry out an environmental impact assessment on the nation’s largest gold mine, which residents say has affected their health and the local environment.

However, Kingsgate says its Chatree mine began production more than a decade ago, long before new laws were introduced that compelled miners to undertake environmental health impact assessments (EHIA).

The Phitsanulok Administrative Court on Tuesday refused calls by residents to revoke the mine’s concessions and also grant local people access to forested areas that had been allocated to the company.

The court did, however, instruct Kingsgate’s wholly owned subsidiary Akara Mining to conduct an EHIA for the Chatree mine and submit the report for approval within a year.

The court action was initiated by 44 residents of Ban Khao Mor in Phichit province, 344 kilometres north of Bangkok.

The residents in late 2010 filed a lawsuit against five Thai state authorities that they accused of illegally issuing mining concessions and land use permits to Kingsgate.

The villagers said the authorities were negligent in monitoring and mitigating alleged health and environmental damage caused by the mine.

The court said the grant of mining concessions to Kingsgate in the absence of EHIAs represented a breach of environmental protection clauses in the 2007 constitution.

If the EHIA report was not approved, the company’s concessions would be revoked, the court said.

Kingsgate chairman Ross Smyth-Kirk said the company had received legal advice that it should not have to undertake an EHIA for the mine.

“We’ve been operating for 10 ½ years there and never had an environmental incident whatsoever,” Mr Smyth-Kirk said.

He said it was likely Kingsgate would appeal the court’s order.

The miner had undertaken an EHIA for a processing plant at its expansion of the existing mine, known as Chatree North, because that came after the new laws were introduced.

Reports had earlier raised fears of leaks from waste ponds at the site that contain cyanide, which is used to process the gold ore.

Mr Smyth-Kirk said Kingsgate’s tailings dam followed “world’s best practice”.

“It’s around five parts per million of cyanide that goes into our tailings dam. We destroy it all. There is no way that anything is going to get outside of that and all of the studies they keep doing, looking into the health of the thing, show that.”

Mr Smyth-Kirk said the 44 residents were led by a disgruntled former employee of the mine.